ZA Christmas Limited Edition Gold Set Swatches & Review

16 December 2014

Provided for review (not the Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy. I just really love that stuff.)

Hey lovelies,

Here's a pretty holiday set from ZA to get you into the festive spirit! ZA have released special limited edition shades of some of their most popular products which are exclusive to these sets. There's a gold set, which I have to review for you today, and a silver set, which I hope to show you later in the week.

Each set is $29.90 and includes two shades of Rich-Glam Liquid Rouge (worth $18 each) and an Impact-Full Eyes Groovy eyeshadow palette (worth $20), so you're getting $56.00 worth of products at a little over half price.

This was my first time trying ZA's eyeshadows so I was pretty excited to take them for a spin! I have tried the Rich-Glam Liquid Rouges before, and you can find my review of three shades from the permanent range here.

The set comes all bundled together ready for gifting. Inside, the packaging has been adorned with gold diamonds, a glamorous take on the standard black packaging. The diamonds remind me of harlequin pattern.

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Impact-Full Eyes Groovy - Pure Gold

The Pure Gold palette contains a quartet of shades and a sponge applicator. I like that the size of the colours is mostly proportionate to how much each colour would be used in a simple colour placement, though I would have preferred to see the sizes of the gold and the brown switched (you'll see why shortly!).

Swatched on bare skin in sunlight.

The first shade is a champagne shimmer with good colour pay off. It has a lovely, soft texture and is easy to blend.

The second shade is a gold shimmer with fine iridescent glitter. If you're thinking of applying this directly to your lid without any sticky base forget about it. There's very little in the way of binder to this shade and it doesn't like to adhere to the lid by itself at all. I did give it a shot, but there was a lot of fall out and I was left with a sparse trail of glitter strewn across my lid. Used with a sticky base, however, it's magic. I put a thin layer of Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy on my lid and after letting it dry for a minute, patted on the shadow with a flat shader brush. This was so much more effective and kept everything in place. If you'd like to read my review of Pixie Epoxy, you can find it here.

The third shade is a warm orange toned brown with flecks of gold glitter. The base colour is powdery and prone to sheering itself out into nothing on the lid. The glitter doesn't bind with the base colour either, so this is another one that left behind a lot of fall out. Worn alone, I found it best to pat the colour on and then just barely blend out the edges. Again, this benefits hugely from being layered over a sticky base as the colour becomes richer, entirely opaque and the glitter stays firmly in place.

The fourth and final shade is a dark brown with gold shimmer. It has good colour pay off and the same soft, blendable texture as the first shade. I wish this colour had been given a larger pan size as I can see it getting a lot more use than the gold glitter.

All in all, I think it's a beautiful palette and the colour choices are right up my alley, but I wasn't impressed that half of the eyeshadows needed a sticky base to work. I don't believe your average consumer will own Fyrinnae Pixie Epoxy or a similar product as they tend to be more of an indie thing, so I envision people getting frustrated trying to use this without it. On the plus side, if you are buying this as a gift for someone it could be really cool to pop a trial size of Pixie Epoxy in with it to introduce them to a life changing product!

For this makeup look I used the warm brown shade all over the lid and along the lower lash line, the dark brown along the socket line, the champagne to blend out and highlight and then a thin layer of Pixie Epoxy followed by the gold shimmer across the center of the lid.

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Rich-Glam Liquid Rouge

The Rich-Glam Liquid Rouge formula is intended to be long lasting and provide the 'rich colour of lipstick and glamorous shine of lip gloss in one single scoop'. They have a curved Ultra-Fit applicator which is designed to provide easy application as the curved side hugs your lips to distribute the colour evenly. I like to use the pointed tip of the wand to outline my lips before using the curved side to fill them in. I do sometimes find that the curved applicator can lay things on a little too thickly though (which was more noticeable with Vivid Red, being the more opaque of the two), so I'll then use the opposite side to even the product out. This formula has a faintly sweet syntheic scent.

Swatched on bare skin in sunlight

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Coral Red

Coral Red is a sheer coral with pink and gold shimmer. The colour settles into liplines a little up close, but this wasn't noticeable in person. It's very comfortable to wear, hydrating lips and lasting for three hours without feathering or migrating. There is a very small amount of tackiness as the lipcolour wears away and some sparkle remains after the colour is gone.

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Vivid Red

Vivid Red is a mostly opaque warm red with very fine golden shimmer. This took a little bit of effort to apply evenly but it's rather stunning once on, the gloss and shimmer makes it a real attention getter! Vivid Red wore for three and a half hours with some minor feathering and was lightly hydrating. Paired with a matching lipliner, it would make an absolutely gorgeous combination for holiday events.